"Under the circumstances, the only thing we can do is to wait," MacRae assented, and I fancied that there was a reluctant quiver in his usually steady voice. "It's going to be smoky at daybreak, but we can see their camp from this first point, I think. There's a big rock over here—I'll show you—you and Sarge can get under cover there. I'll lie up on the opposite side, so they'll have to come between us. Let them pack and get started. When they get nearly abreast, cut loose. Shoot their saddle-horses first, then we can fight it out. Come on, I'll show you that rock."
MacRae's bump of location was nearly as well developed as Piegan's. He picked his way through the sage-brush to the other side of the canyon, bringing us in the deepest gloom to a great slab of sandstone that had fallen from above, and lay a few feet from the base of the sheer wall. It was a natural breastwork, all ready to our hand. There, without another word, he left us. Crouching in the shelter of that rock, not daring to speak above a whisper, denied the comforts of tobacco, it seemed as if we were never to be released from the dusky embrace of night. In reality it was less than two hours till daybreak, but they were slow-footed ones to me. Then dawn flung itself impetuously across the hills, and the naked rim of the canyon took form in a shifting whirl of smoke. Down in the depths gloom and shadows vanished together, and Piegan Smith and I peered over the top of our rock and saw the outlaw camp—men and horses dim figures in the growing light. We scanned the opposite side for sight of MacRae, but saw nothing of him; he kept close under cover.
"They're packin' up," Piegan murmured, with a dry chuckle. "I reckon things won't tighten nor nothin' in a few minutes, eh? But say, damn if I see anything among that layout that resembles a female. Do you?"
I did not, even when I focused the field-glasses on that bunch at that short distance. Certainly she was not there—at least she was not to be seen, and I could almost read the expression on each man's features, so close did the glasses draw them up. And failing to see her started me thinking that after all she might have given them the slip. I hoped it might be so. Lyn was no chicken-hearted weakling, to sit down and weep unavailingly in time of peril. Bred on the range, on speaking-terms with the turbulent frontier life, her wits weren't likely to forsake her in a situation of that kind.
While the light of day grew stronger and the smoke eddied in heavier wreaths above, one of them swung up on a horse and came down the bottom at a fast lope. We had no means of knowing what his mission might be, but I did know that the square shoulders, the lean eagle face, could only belong to one man; and I dropped the glasses and drew a bead on his breast. I hesitated a second, squinting along the barrel of the carbine; I wanted him to round the point that jutted out from the other side of the canyon, so that his partners could not see his finish. If they did not see him go down, nor observe the puff of smoke from behind the rock, they might think he had fired a shot himself. And while I waited, grumbling at the combination of circumstances that made it necessary to shoot down even a cold-blooded brute like him in such a way, Mac took the matter out of my hands in his own characteristic fashion.
Lessard turned the point, and as the carbine-hammer clicked back under the pull of my thumb, MacRae sprang to his feet from behind a squatty clump of sage, right in Lessard's path. Nervy as men are made, MacRae worshiped at the shrine of an even break, a square deal for friend or foe. And Lessard got it. There among the sage-brush he got a fair chance for his life, according to the code of men who settle their differences at the business end of a six-shooter. But it wasn't Lessard's hour. Piegan Smith and I saw his hand flash to his pistol, saw it come to a level, heard the single report of MacRae's gun. It was a square deal—which Lessard had not given us. He crumpled in the saddle; sprawled a moment on the neck of his horse, and dropped to the ground. MacRae sank behind the sage again, and we waited for the others.
CHAPTER XXI.
AN ELEMENTAL ALLY.
But they did not come. One of them must have seen Lessard fall, for at the crack of MacRae's gun men and horses, already half-hidden by the thickening smoke, vanished into the brush. Piegan fired one ineffectual shot as they flicked out of sight. So far we had seen nothing of Lyn. I was satisfied she was not in the party, unaccountable as that seemed to be.